Rahul to lead Cong from front in LS polls: Pilot

Rahul Gandhi will lead Congress from the front in the Lok Sabha as well as the assembly polls this year, union minister Sachin Pilot said on Tuesday, skirting the question whether he would be projected as Prime Ministerial candidate to take on Narendra Modi.

‘I am making it very, very unambiguous to you. Rahul Gandhi will lead this party to polls in 2014 and once we win, God willing, and when the UPA III is being formed, at that time you will see, who becomes our PM candidate,’ he said.

He was asked why the ruling party is so diffident about projecting its Prime Ministerial nominee before elections when there are growing indications that Modi could be named BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate soon.

‘You can be less flamboyant but you have to be humane, approachable, and an acceptable leader, who has the heart to carry people along. Whether you are in coalition or in single party rule, it does not matter. The country is too large. We are a collection of so many religions, cultures and ethnicity that we need and we deserve an entity, who is able to take everyone along’, he said.

‘...To my mind, one person, who is able to transcend these divisions that we have of caste, religion, language and so on from this part of India to that part of India, the only person, who can symbolically epitomise all of India, is Rahul Gandhi,’ Pilot said.